


StormPilot Suite: Day 1 - Affettuoso

by whorl



Series: StormPilot Suite [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Stormpilot - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6598237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whorl/pseuds/whorl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn and Poe Dameron get to know each other. Perhaps a little romance may blossom, if they are given enough time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome aboard!

**Author's Note:**

> Poe Dameron, Finn, myriad other Star Wars characters, and small sections of dialogue from "The Force Awakens" that appear in this story are all the property of Disney/Lucasfilm. No copyright infringement intended. Please don't sue me, I have no money.

Finn hadn’t been on the Alliance Base for a full day, yet he was already accustomed to being carefully, deliberately avoided. No one had spoken to him as he lined up for breakfast. He was surprised to see real, cooked food, rather than the standard military rations. Finn grabbed a cup of coffee, then helped himself to a plate of eggs, toast, and an unidentifiable piece of meat. Rather than risk causing a scene, he chose an unoccupied table in the far corner of the cantina.

So when someone abruptly sat down next to him, he choked rather unelegantly on a forkful of eggs.

Poe Dameron pounded him heartily on the back. “Hey, buddy! I see you survived debriefing with the General!”

“Yeah. Managed to survive that, but you say hello and I nearly die. G’morning, Poe.” Finn swallowed a mouthful of coffee and cleared his throat. “I talked with them for hours last night. I hope the information I had will help.”

“What, intel like that? We would have been Bantha chow without it. Hell, we still probably will be, but we can at least go out fighting.”

Finn managed an anemic smile. “Thanks, that’s reassuring,” he muttered into his coffee.

Poe’s grin was warm and unguarded. “Seriously, though, I’m glad to see you made it out of the sandbox.”

“You too, Poe. I mean, after the planet **ate** the ship—”

“Good thing I don’t taste too good, huh?” Both men laughed.

Poe gazed at the bustle of activity outside the cantina. “So, have you been conscripted to a work team yet? It’s a zoo out on the airfield. People seem to forget we have five days—everyone’s acting like we have five minutes before we go blow things up.”

Finn looked startled. “Uh, Poe, other than you and the General, nobody has said a word to me since I arrived. I don’t think anyone is looking to have me help them—more like the opposite.” Finn rubbed his forehead. “They probably think I’m going to plant a bomb on their ship. Or maybe I’ll just dispense with stealth mode and shoot them when their backs are turned.”

“Seriously? What a bunch of assholes.”

“I can’t really blame them, Poe. After all, to them, I’m the enemy, even if I’m not in the outfit anymore. How can they trust a Stormtrooper?”

Poe’s expression turned grim. “ **Ex** -Stormtrooper. Finn, you aren’t the enemy. Don’t let people make you think that.” His smirk returned, and he stole the last piece of toast off Finn’s plate. “Also, everyone knows that Stormtroopers can’t shoot for shit, so they shouldn’t be afraid of death by blaster fire.” He crammed the whole piece of toast into his mouth, chewing noisily. “See? Poor reasoning. Thus, assholes.”

Finn laughed and smacked him on the arm.

Poe looked thoughtful. “Well, then, come work on my ship. Nothing big to fix, but there’s a bunch of minor tweaking I’ve been meaning to do. Need to shave another half second off my dive, but I’m still getting foil drag—”

“Poe, hang on, I know next to nothing about ship repair.”

“Ah, that’s okay, I mostly just need someone to hand me tools and provide half of a moderately engaging conversation.” Poe gestured unenthusiastically to the others in the cantina. “And I’ve already heard everyone else’s stories a hundred times.”

“Now **those** are things I can do. You have found yourself a willing conscript.” Finn stuck out his hand, mimicking formality.

Poe gave his hand a hearty shake. “Welcome aboard!”


	2. Ask me

After breakfast, Poe took Finn on a quick tour of the Alliance base, pointing out the major highlights. They swung back around to the airfield, picking up a basic toolbox and several specialty parts that Finn couldn’t identify. They set the supplies in the hard-packed dirt next to Poe’s X-wing. Finn opened the box, trying to remind himself of the names of all the tools contained inside. He had done alright on the Falcon, mostly. _Except for nearly dying from poison gas, mercenaries, and rathtars. Oh yeah, and lying to the only other person who treated me as a human._ Finn pushed the thought out of his mind. “I looked for you last night, after talking with the General. You don’t sleep in the common quarters?”

“Nah, not really my thing. I have a place about five hundred meters below the ridge.” Poe pried the faceplate off a control panel and started unwrapping wires.

“You’ve been stationed here long enough that you have a **place**?” Finn was astonished. “Like, a **house**?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. More like a camp. It only rains about once every hundred days here, so most nights I just sleep out.” Poe stopped fiddling with the control panel and his brow furrowed with a faraway look. “Been doing that for a while now. I like the stars.” He grabbed a soldering iron and a pair of pliers, and ducked under the ship.

“Huh. That’s cool. Good to have your own spot.”

Poe’s voice drifted up from the midsection of the ship. “Hey, there’s plenty of room, bring your bedroll and find your own corner of the sky.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t want to barge in and mess up your routine—” The last thing Finn wanted was to impose on his only friend.

“Look, the barracks are functional but with people not talking to you, that’ll get old fast. Plus, I’ll just kick you out if you get too annoying.”

Finn could hear the smile in his voice. “Thanks, Poe, I appreciate it.”

“No worries, buddy. Anyway, I owe you about a million for getting me out of Stormtrooper Central.”

There was a scrape of metal, and Poe chucked a bent sprocket into the dirt. Finn grabbed a replacement and stretched his arm as far as he could under the ship to hand the new piece to Poe. “Got it?”

Poe’s fingers left a greasy streak when he took the tiny piece of metal from Finn’s palm. “Yep, thanks.”

Both were silent for a few minutes. Finn stretched out next to the ship, eyes closed, enjoying the sunshine, while Poe continued to assess the delicate machinery housed beneath the black X-wing.

“Finn?” Poe’s voice was uncharacteristically hesitant, and much closer than before.

“Sorry, did I doze off? What did you ask for?” He scrambled up and towards the toolbox before he noticed that Poe was just leaning against the ship, work abandoned for the moment. He had a troubled look. “Poe, what is it?”

“So, this whole morning, I’ve been trying to not bring up anything related to you, y’know, being an ex-Stormtrooper. But I have, like, a million questions for you, and I—” Poe slid down the hull, sitting back on his heels, choosing his words deliberately. “I don’t want to ask you anything that makes you uncomfortable.” He looked searchingly at Finn. “But I also don’t want to be weird and just avoid it entirely, right? So, yeah, I wanted to know if it’s okay to ask you stuff about—” Poe took a moment, calculating in his head “—before, uh, four days ago? Wow, has it really only been four days? Man, when this campaign is over, I need a vacation.”

As Poe was talking, Finn had just stared at him, as though he was speaking an incomprehensible language.

“Uh, Finn?” Poe sighed. “Sorry. See, this is what I was trying to avoid, I guess that’s answer enough in itself—”

Finn interrupted his friend’s backpedaling. “Poe, ask me whatever you want. I can’t imagine it, but if there’s something I don’t want to answer, I’ll tell you. I, just—” Finn swallowed, hard. He looked Poe in the face and squared his shoulders. “Thank you for asking me if it’s okay to ask. That’s honestly the kindest thing anyone has done for me in my life.”

Pity flashed in Poe’s eyes—just for a moment—before he covered with his standard sarcasm. “Glad that heroically piloting you to safety doesn’t merit top billing. Wouldn’t want it to go to my head.”

Finn played along. “Well, if we hadn’t been shot out of the sky and then crash landed in the middle of **nowhere** —”

Poe was already ducking back under the ship, wrench in hand. “Doesn’t make for a good story if the landing is safe.” He was quiet for a moment. “You’re welcome.”

Finn ducked his head and smiled.


	3. Old wounds

Twilight was approaching as Poe led Finn to his campsite below the ridge. In true outdoorsman fashion, they’d brought along supper to warm up by the campfire. Poe didn’t think Finn could be more excited—he was like a little kid.

“Poe, I forgot to ask earlier—what’s up with the meals here?” Finn had been dismayed to discover that, unlike breakfast, lunch was standard military issue. Ration packs were nourishing but didn’t compare to real food.

“Couple people here like to cook, but Command wanted us to stay on rations. So they compromised. Real breakfast, real dessert—everything else comes as a rectangle.”

“That explains the chocolate cake, anyway.”

Poe dropped the firewood he’d been carrying next to the soot-blackened stone circle. “Well, here we are. Home sweet home.”

Finn took in the sparse accommodations. With the air of someone making a grand proclamation, and with great solemnity, he spoke to the darkening sky. “Poe, it’s wonderful.”

“You could at least lie with a little more panache, Finn.”

“I’m serious, Poe. This is fantastic. It’s security, your own spot. It’s freedom.”

Poe flopped down on his makeshift bed, surveying the first stars of the evening. “Well, it’s more view than any one man deserves, that’s for sure.”

They both spent a few moments looking appreciatively at the night sky, before Poe walked back to the stone circle.

“Poe? This is actually something I’m a little bit good at.” Finn indicated at the fire pit. “As part of our training, we had basic survival. You know, ‘Stormtroopers in the Wild.’ We weren’t always supposed to be stationed on ships or in inhabited places. We even had to practice making fires without any ignition source.”

Poe could hear the hint of pride in Finn’s voice. “Well, then, get to it, firestarter! We have—” He peered at the label of the ration tin in vain. “—some sort of protein to reheat before it gets so dark that the wolves move in. But tonight you can cheat—I have matches.” He tossed the box to Finn.

Twenty minutes and one cheerfully crackling blaze later, Poe had to admit he was impressed with his new friend’s fire-building ability. “We can’t let this get too much bigger or the people in the barracks will think we’re having a party!” He tucked the food tins into the coals at the fire’s edge, and looked over at Finn. He kept his tone carefully neutral. “So...they taught you some useful skills, at least?”

“Yeah. Survival, hand-to-hand combat, weapons proficiency—”

Poe snorted.

“Look, I’ll have you know that most of the shooting issue is actually because the blasters themselves are badly designed. Limited budget.” Finn knew Poe was just teasing him, but he felt as though he still had to explain. “The targeting module is crap, they overheat way too easily, they jam up with no way to reset them. When they don’t want to work right, they’re a mess.” Finn shrugged.

“You just don’t want to admit that none of you could hit the broad side of a barn from ten feet away.”

Finn chuckled, then grew serious. “Probably for the best, anyway. Maybe some sort of cosmic Force intervention. I mean, why should the guns work right when we’re using them to kill innocent people?”

Poe winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Poe, it’s not implication. It’s fact. We were supposed to kill anyone who didn’t conform to the First Order. Or kill anyone they _told_ us to kill, regardless. Old men. Women. Infants. Wholesale slaughter of towns. Planets.” Finn’s voice was starting to rise. “We couldn’t question anything, we just did as we were told. Or we were killed, too.”

Poe enveloped his friend in what he hoped was a comforting hug. “Finn, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring all this up, I didn’t want to reopen old wounds—”

Finn’s voice was muffled against Poe’s chest. “Poe, all I **am** is old wounds.” He could feel Poe cringe at the sting of those words.

Finn pulled away, and took a few steadying breaths. He spoke slowly, fighting to keep his voice even. “I was taken from my family so young that I can’t remember their faces. Taken, or sold. I don’t know. I don’t know if it even matters. Since then, I have been trained to be a weapon. Exploitable. Disposable. And trained to hate anything that isn’t the First Order. But I couldn’t do it.” His voice cracked. “I tried, but I couldn’t hate them. The people in that damned village. So that night, I watched as they sent us into the chaos to kill or be killed, I watched the only person I could remotely call a friend die, right in front of me. I watched, and I couldn’t fight back. Not against them. So I ran.” He roughly wiped tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“You were there?” As Finn spoke, a cold knot had grown in Poe’s stomach. His brain told his mouth to stop talking, but the words kept coming, unrestrained. “On Jakku? That night that I—” Poe’s throat tightened. “That night that I wound up on The Finalizer?” He couldn’t help himself. “Which is the worst name for a starship in all of history.”

Finn laughed despite his tears. “Yes, it is.” He sighed. “And yes, I was on Jakku. My friend—well, my squadmate, at any rate, he was next to me. In training, he was always a little bit behind. We used to catch him up to the rest of the group all the time so he wouldn’t get punished. We all felt a little sorry for the guy, I think. I never had any deep conversations with him or anything, but we didn’t really have a whole lot to talk about, you know? But he never gave anyone a hard time.” Finn dropped his eyes to the ground and his voice went flat. “And I watched as he ran full speed into the town and got shot like he was nothing. I went to him, but I couldn’t think of what to say, so I said nothing.”

“Finn.” Poe’s mouth was so dry that he could barely get a single word out. _No_ —d _on’t let it be me._

Finn didn’t notice his friend’s change in attitude, and let out a grim laugh. “Hey, you probably saw **me** that night. Turns out, I looked different than everyone else. As my squadmate died, he reached his hand up to my face—” Finn raised his own hand to his forehead. “Left a handprint on my helmet. I only saw it when I was back on the ship.”

Poe turned and walked away from the fire, shaking his head. “Son of a bitch.”

Finn watched Poe walk into the shadows. “What is it?” When Poe turned back, Finn was shocked to see that he had tears in his eyes. Finn stood up, alarmed. “Poe, what is it?”

“It was me.” Poe looked to the stars; he couldn’t meet Finn’s gaze. When there was no reply, Poe forced himself to look Finn square in the face. “Don’t you get it, it was me? I’m the one who shot your friend.” Poe walked away from the firelight again. “You had one friend in a thousand Stormtroopers and I killed him.”

“Ten thousand,” Finn whispered. He hadn’t moved from the spot, but in that moment, his thoughts were far away.

When Finn said had been on Jakku that night, Poe knew in an instant what he had done. Even before Finn’s story confirmed it, Poe knew. An icy feeling of horror was like a knife through him. Poe was in agony, knowing what he had done. _His one friend?_ Yet Poe was even more shocked by Finn’s quiet condemnation. _Ten thousand?_

“Fine, one in TEN thousand. Even better. Thanks.” Poe’s agitation kept him in motion, hands in his hair, gesturing wildly. “Goddamnit, how in the hell was I supposed to know? One in ten thousand.” He looked back, wild eyes searching for anything in Finn’s unreadable expression. _One in ten thousand_ repeated endlessly in Poe’s mind, twisting the knife. And in an instant, unbidden, his distress was replaced with blind rage. Anything would be easier. He let the anger overwhelm his guilt.

Poe’s eyes and voice were cold. “One in ten thousand _._ Fuck you.” He stormed off into the darkness.

Finn made no move to follow him. He sat, thinking, in the waning firelight, wondering what he would say when Poe returned. If he returned.


	4. Ten thousand

An hour passed. Finn heard the footsteps returning long before he could make out Poe’s form against the stars.

Poe sat roughly on his knees in front of Finn. His voice was small but he looked into Finn’s eyes as he apologized. “Finn, I’m sorry. Sorry for what I said. Sorry that I—” He steadied his jaw, his voice dropped, and he started again. “I am truly sorry that I took your friend away from you.”

Finn looked back at him, as though from a great distance. “Poe, why are you convinced that it was you? I didn’t see who shot him.”

Poe smiled sadly. “Because as your friend died, I thought to myself, ‘Lucky me, that guy I killed is painting a target on the guy I’m going to kill next.’ And that’s all you were. A target.” Poe was horrified at the thought, at how close he had come to killing the man who was sitting in front of him.

Finn considered this. “So, why am I still alive?”

“Truth be told, because your squad blew up my ship. And with no escape route, playing sniper against a squad of Stormtroopers seemed like a bad idea, so I went with plan B. I hid. Turns out, that plan didn’t work out entirely as expected either.”

Both men were silent for a time. Finn spoke first. “I didn’t mean it as an accusation.”

Poe didn’t follow. “You didn’t mean what?”

“Ten thousand. I didn’t mean it like you heard it, like it was your fault for targeting the one person in ten thousand Stormtroopers that was my friend.”

“Ah.” Poe added a couple of branches to the glowing embers. “Well, I’m guess I’m glad to hear I took it wrong. What did you mean?”

“When you said ‘one in a thousand,’ it all hit me again. We really were nothing to them—the First Order. We were ten thousand pieces of marginally useful machinery that could be thrown at whatever nuisance was loudest. We were just one garrison. There were hundreds more just like us.” Hearing Finn’s words, Poe couldn’t fathom the scale. _So many?_

Finn continued. “That’s not even the worst part. From **ten thousand** guys, the closest connection I could hope for was knowing **one** who just never bothered anybody. I don’t know anything else about him.”

The newly added timber had caught enough heat, and the fire flared anew, illuminating the edges of the campground once again.

“Poe, I’m also sorry for that man’s death. I’m sorry that it took him dying for me to finally stop watching and run.” Finn was frustrated that his words felt so clumsy. “I’m sorry that it had to be you that killed him, because I don’t know that I will ever convince you that you didn’t take something from me.”

Poe started to speak, but Finn put a hand on his shoulder. “Poe, please let me just finish what I’m saying before you say anything.” Poe nodded, and listened.

“For twenty years, my life has been following a set of terrible rules. Fear instead of respect. Hate instead of discipline. Conformity instead of conviction. The best thing anybody did for me in those twenty years was **die** , because it finally got me to move! Poe, I met you **four days** ago _._ And in that time, do you realize what you’ve done for me?”

Poe wanted to speak, but he only cocked his head, inviting Finn to continue.

“You helped me escape. You gave me a chance to live a real life! You sat down and listened to things I said, things that weren’t status reports or intelligence briefings. You spoke up for me, even knowing where I came from, what I was.” Finn grabbed at the lapels of his jacket. “You _literally_ gave me the clothes off your back.”

Both chuckled at this, hesitantly at first, but as the two men felt their tension dissipate, they gave themselves over to uncontrollable laughter until both were hiccupping for air.

Finn took a deep breath before continuing. “Poe Dameron, you—” Finn put his hand over his own heart, punctuating each word with a gentle thump to his chest, in an effort to convey the enormity of what he was trying to say. “—you **gave me my name**.” He gestured to the sky. “In this whole, free, beautiful galaxy, you were my first real friend. I wish there was something more powerful to say than ‘Thank you,’ but if there is, I can’t think of it. So thank you.”

Poe waited a long moment before speaking, wanting to be sure that he wasn’t about to interrupt Finn again. “Finn, I knew you were a crazy bastard the second you pulled me into that corridor and started blurting out your half-cocked plan. You getting us out of there was insane. I owe you my life, no question. And I think that, right now, you can’t see it in yourself, but believe me when I say that you are a braver man with a bigger heart than most anybody I’ve ever met. I am proud to call you my friend.”

The two men, strangers just four days ago, both suddenly felt as though they’d known each other forever. Poe slung an arm around Finn’s shoulders as he led them back to the campfire to examine the ruins of their dinner.

Poe glanced appraisingly at the position of the moon. “You know, despite what I said to you this afternoon, you probably would have had a better evening in the barracks.”

“Not better.” Finn’s serious tone turned light. “Though, maybe a more restful one.” They located the food tins with some difficulty, buried in the ashes. “I think the dinner might be salvageable.” Finn dubiously nudged the blackened, melted blob with his boot.

“Nah. I’ll just go with dessert.” Poe rummaged in his rucksack, locating the cake. He handed a fork to Finn. “Also, let’s get one thing straight right now, I didn’t _give_ you my jacket—you stole it from me while my back was turned.”

Finn snatched his piece of cake from Poe’s outstretched hand. “As I recall, I rescued it from a rapidly sinking ship.”

“It’s all right, I suppose you can keep it as a token of my appreciation for your efforts in my rescue.”

“It looks better on me, anyway.” Finn cheerfully dug into his piece of cake.

“Ha!” Poe watched Finn eat his cake in the firelight, wearing his jacket. _He was right._


End file.
